If I Stay
by Don't touch my Seaweed Brain
Summary: "They won't let me die. But I'm coming, Sherlock. I promise I'm coming." "Oh, John." Post Fall AU.


**If I Stay**

**Summary: "They won't let me die. But I'm coming, Sherlock. I promise I'm coming." "Oh, John." Post Fall AU. **

**Warnings: PTSD, Eventual Johnlock. Cutting. Very dark. **

**Dedication: To those who need a friend, those who are alone, who need a listener. I am here for you. **

**Prompt: (From the new episode preview) "The person he didn't think mattered to me at all, was the one who mattered the most.) Okay, so he says it to Molly. But it's still a good line.**

**AN: Hello, loves. I am now a SuperWhoLockian. (Supernatural, Doctor Who, and Sherlock fan.) My muses think I'm insane. Don't worry; updates are coming for my other stories. Promise. **

**AN2: To new and old readers: I recently watched 2x3, The Reichenbach Fall, and used a box of tissues, and since the rest of the Internet is completely useless, I turned to . I was disappointed at the lack of emotionally damaged John. Really, Sherlock just died, and the only good fic I have found is Trying to Cope, by sherlockedwatson, which you should definitely check out. If you know any other good ones, please review or PM me. I know nothing medical. AT ALL. DO NOT BLAME ME FOR INCORRECT FACTS. **

**I hope that this story satisfies your needs. Please drop me a review and tell me how I'm doing!**

John was in the hospital again. Before he left, Sherlock had asked Molly to keep an eye on him. John was fragile, he was _John,_ and Sherlock had foreseen him being lost. Just not this kind of lost.

_Every week for the past month, John had been found on the floor of 221B, holding something belonging to Sherlock, whether he was wearing his coat, clutching at his scarf, holding on to his phone for dear life, and he was always staring at the smiley face on he wall, at the bullet holes, as though expecting to see Sherlock behind him, shooting holes into the wall. _

_He was always drugged, because after retrieving him from the hospital, (He had been in shock after Sherlock's fall, on top of being concussed from that damn biker) Mrs. Hudson, bless her, had put antidepressants in the tea John still drank with no sugar. Updates came periodically, but email was difficult to receive in coach. Especially because of those annoying, empty, human beings surrounding him, asking useless questions. He didn't want a case, and what was left of Moriarty's force didn't concern him at the moment. _

_He wanted to know about John. John, who was the only light worth looking at in a world full of dark emptiness, the reason he had faked his death. _

_Sherlock was one of those who knew he was empty, knew he had no heart, and had surrounded himself with the illusion that he didn't care, didn't want one. _

_But then, then there was John. John who was so infuriatingly human, so defenseless and ignorant, and then so smart in a way that Sherlock could never match. _

_Alone always protected him, alone should have protected John. _

_Alone didn't protect John from himself. _

_It wasn't Mrs. Hudson, or Molly, that called the police that time. No, Sherlock had had enough of waiting, of watching outside of the flat, no, their flat, noticing the tiny things that were wrong. _

_How John stopped at his door every night, carrying a cup of tea that he never drank. _

_The untouched laptop. _

_The hours John spent looking at Sherlock's chair. _

_The drugs that John had 'hidden' from Sherlock disappearing. _

_Sherlock hated the tiny differences, and was tired of watching John loose weight, of watching him barely touch the things that Mrs. Hudson brought daily, of watching the full dishes pile up. _

_Sherlock was ready for John to tell him to go get milk again, was ready for the cups of tea late at night, for the sounds of the violin to fill the flat again, instead of getting dusty in it's unmoved spot by the window. _

_Sherlock was too late for those taken-for-granted details to ever come back. _

_He immediately noticed the loose doorknob that Mrs. Hudson had asked John to fix weeks ago, noticed the smell of old coffee, noticed the faint scent of tea, even from the bottom of the stairs. _

_He noticed the stains that weren't there before, noticed the gunpowder, noticed the bullet holes, and immediately knew that John was far worse off then Molly had implied. _

_He burst into the flat, ignoring everything that wasn't John. _

_He didn't see the disarray of his experiments, or the empty box of nicotine patches, or the new knife collection (from a garage sale of one of John's army buddies) that was stained in blood. _

_All he saw was John. _

_John was sitting there, on the ground, calm as when he used to scan the papers, the smallest knife in his hand, the one he used to carry in the heels of his shoes. _

_All he saw were the lines. Perfect, symmetrical, inhuman lines carved all along his arms, the jumpers that Sherlock hated, but secretly adored were bloodstained, as the lines ran deeper. _

_Scarlet covered the floor of the flat, pooling around John. John, who was just sitting there, calm as ever as he cut through the veins that he, as a doctor, knew would kill him. _

_"John!" He had said. "Stop, stop please!"_

_Those beautiful blue eyes, the first thing Sherlock had ever noticed, not the tan, not the military haircut, not the way he held himself, but his eyes, the ones that had seen so much, and yet were still full of the light and innocence of a child, these were not the eyes that stared at Sherlock. _

_No, these were empty. Almost grey, just watching as more of the vicious liquid flowed down his pale arm. _

_"Sherlock!" John's eyes had widened, and a tiny ring of blue was visible through the drugged haze. _

_He had dropped to his knees, stealing the blade from John's skeletal hands, throwing it into the corner where once, months ago, he had strung up the Christmas tree, laughing at something Mrs. Hudson had said. _

_John looked so small, so vulnerable, so unlike _John_, looking up at him confusedly. The look on his face was so broken, that Sherlock swept him up in an embrace, wrapping his scarf, having fallen off in his hurry, around John's arms, binding them together to stop the bleeding as he held him. _

_"You're touching me." John looked up around Sherlock's embrace, blue eyes like a child's that was close to crying. He clung to Sherlock. "You never touch me." Those were the words that made Sherlock regret, really regret, for the first time, one of his decisions. Damn it, what had he done?_

_"I'm going to get you to a hospital, John." He tried to keep his voice steady. He had to be invincible, keep up his shield. "You're going to be fine."_

_"Don't you want to be with me?" John's voice was quiet, whispering. They were down the stairs, and his eyes were closing fast._

_"Stay awake, John, do you hear me, stay awake!" He knew that the ambulance would be there in minutes, but he also knew that they wouldn't let him through to see John. _

_The cabbie asked if they were okay, what had happened. "Drive. Just drive." _

_Lestrade met him at the hospital. "You bastard. You right bastard." _

_"You can criticize me later. He needs help. Now." Whirling around, and placing John on the nearest stretcher, they pushed it through the hospital until they got to the front desk. "Help him. Now." Sherlock was aware that he sounded incredible unintelligent, was aware of the three pregnant women in the waiting room, of the cancer patient squeezing the hand of her alcoholic father, of Lestrade behind him, glaring, but all that he cared about at the moment was John. _

_The rest of this hospital, of this _world _could go to hell as long as there was still John. _

The rest of the wait was a blur, watching people in the precise shade of blue that was only available in some parts of China take John away, of hearing Lestrade berate him for not telling John, telling him that it was his fault and then getting a call, glaring one last time before walking away, feeling the glares from the father of the cancer patient.

That didn't matter anymore. All that mattered was John, lying on the hospital bed with his arms in soft restraints.

His fingers positively itched to take those off, because it looked so positively _wrong_.

That was me, he silently realized. Years ago, before Lestrade. That was me. I've turned John into me.

_Drug induced hazes, staring up at Greg's grey eyes, pulling uselessly at restraints he knew wouldn't come off. He wasn't even sober enough to know that it was a natural reflex. _

No. No he wouldn't remember that. John wasn't him; John was too _good_ to be him.

He stood by the door, guarding it, really, but staring at John, not any potential threats, though he knew when anyone came close to he door by the click of the scratched, blood-and-coffee-stained floors. Always at John, at the lines scars from the very date Sherlock had jumped. Scars that were older, from after the army. Barely faded lines that must have happened when John was a _child._

_How long has he been keeping this from me?_ He had always prided himself on being exceptionally observant, and he knew John better than anyone. Right?

He burrowed deep into his mind palace, only allowing himself to be momentarily distracted by the occasional flutter of John's eyelids, the minute disturbances of the heart monitor reassuring instead of irritating.

He searched every crevice of his mind for something-anything that could have tipped him off. He scanned through every moment of his memories, waiting for something that should have been screaming at him from the beginning. But there was nothing. They were hidden, very carefully on John's part. He had underestimated him. Why was John, completely ordinary _John_ able to stump him when he had outsmarted Moriarty?

Ah-there it was. John had been hiding them for so long, so incredibly long, that it had become second nature to remove all evidence.

He had never experienced the signs, never known anyone except himself who was desperate enough to do _that_, and he didn't know himself well enough to understand his signs, let alone someone else's.

The people, all with their little lives, their little details that no one ever noticed, no one except him, but he didn't understand their reasons.

A dead daughter as password name, shots fired to defend a man just met. It was human nature, and he couldn't understand it. It was just words, empty words, but damn it, they meant so much to those ordinary people, and they meant so much to him.

And the reason that John was here, all the reasons that John had been hurt, that was his fault.

All the empty words, all the reasons in the world, they couldn't make up for what he had done. He had put John here, and there was no way that he was going to be able to make up for it now.

The stirring of the still body in the bed was the only thing that was even capable of waking Sherlock from his mind-induced sleep, was the only thing that Sherlock wanted distracting him from his thoughts, so when it finally happened, after two days of pacing, and thinking, and not eating, John had finally come back to him.

There was a stir from the bed, and Sherlock shook himself out of whatever cramped position his mind palace had forced him into.

"John? Can you hear me? John?" He leaned over the bed, blowing away the dark curls that fell in his face.

Suddenly, there was blue, and he couldn't see anything else, and for a minute he didn't want to, but then, he saw the hurt, the masking of such incredible hurt, it wasn't a deduction, it was a fact. John was broken. "John," he breathed out, excuses and words and promises and _words_ on the tip of his tongue, a reflex to reassure that he knew wouldn't even come close to working before he even said them.

"Sherlock?" John rasped out, and he could see the effort that it took the army doctor to just say the one word. "You're here. You're never here when I'm in the hospital. Sherlock's heart sank, turning in his stomach.

"I'm here now, John. I'm sorry it took me so long to get here." _I'm sorry for not telling you. I'm sorry for running away. _The unspoken words fumed inside Sherlock. John deserved so much more than his broken apologies.

"No, Sherlock." The cracks in John's voice were prominent, and Sherlock reached for the ice chips, slowly feeding them to John, until he turned his head away. John coughed, and Sherlock reached behind him for the call button, not taking his eyes off of John. "It's my fault. I didn't come fast enough, and I didn't get to you. I am coming though." There was a burning fire in John's eyes, and it was consuming him, and it was Sherlock's fault. Light blue eyes were locked on him, desperately, as though if they looked away that he would be gone. *

"I'm sorry John. I'm so, so sorry." He was whispering, losing control. The whispered words, John had always said, they don't make any difference. Now he understood why.

Look at what the whispered words had done to his blogger.

*** DOCTOR WHO REFERNCE. K, so if you recognize the whispered line, than that's from ISHBM, my PJO story and I'M NOT PLAGARIZING PLS DON'T SUE ME! **

**Please drop me a review! I love you all!**


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